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My Experience Travelling the World
131 Plays4 years ago
Gary Arndt is an American blogger and photographer. He is the author of the travel blog Everything Everywhere and a former Minneapolis entrepreneur. Arndt was a business owner in Minneapolis, Minnesota before he became a writer, starting his first business a few years out of college. He owned the web design firm, Creative Internet Solutions, which he sold in 1999 . While there, he developed the idea to open a video-game playing facility while watching his employees play computer games after work. He owned the videogame salon The Stomping Grounds, with a location in Minneapolis and a second location that opened in 2002.The salon, one of the original PC-gaming rooms in the United States, was founded from the profits Arndt received from a gaming news website he bought in the late 1990s called Stomped.com. The business received about $1 million in revenue during its first year.
In March 2007 Arndt sold his house in order to travel the world. The initial plan was to travel for about a year and a half, however Arndt decided to continue his travels indefinitely. Since 2007, he has traveled to about 140 countries and all seven continents. Arndt does not maintain a personal residence, living only in temporary locations. He chronicles his journey on his travel blog , Everything Everywhere, which has approximately 100,000 readers monthly. The blog includes both comments on the places he has traveled and photography.
In this episode Gary shares his experiences travelling the world.
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Transcript
Ghana vs Togo: A Development Contrast
00:00:00
Speaker
But I was very surprised at the difference between, say, Ghana and Togo, because when we went to Lome, we were right on the border with Ghana, like right where the fence is. And you could see such a difference between Ghana and Togo by just looking at each side of the fence, that Ghana is so much more developed.
00:00:21
Speaker
You know, the standard of living is higher. You can tell just the roads are better, everything else. And Ghana has a lot of things that you won't see everywhere else in the world. One of the things I thought was very interesting was the names of a lot of the businesses. You know, you'll have like, God loves you computer repair.
00:00:41
Speaker
or Jesus saves coffee house or something like that. Very religious names for the businesses. And I've never seen that anywhere else in the world. Yeah, but I've told a lot of people that, you know, if you're going to West Africa, I think Ghana is probably the best place to visit as a tourist because it's the most developed. Everyone speaks English. It's easy to get around and probably have a better experience there than you might in some other countries.
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:01:08
Speaker
Welcome friends to The Entrepreneur Speaks. I'm your host Kofi Annemedou. Each week, I host an amazing entrepreneur on their journey, successes and challenges. It is my hope that we will learn from their experiences as we all work towards living a life of passion and purpose. My guest, Gary Ants, is a blogger and a photographer.
00:01:38
Speaker
He's the author of the travel blog, Everything Everywhere. In 2007, he sold his house and has been traveling around the world ever since.
Gary's Travel Beginnings
00:01:51
Speaker
He joins me today on the Entrepreneurs Speaks podcast to share his journey as well as his experiences. Welcome to my show, Gary. Thank you for having me.
00:02:05
Speaker
Let's kick off today's conversation by getting to know you some more. Please tell us a bit about yourself and how your childhood was like. I had a normal childhood. I grew up in the middle of the United States. And from where I live, I never actually saw the ocean until I was 21 years old, because we're so far away from it. So I know in lots of parts of the world, people are surprised when I tell them that.
00:02:31
Speaker
other than just traveling around the area where we lived.
00:02:35
Speaker
I never really traveled internationally growing up or anything like that. It wasn't until much later I started a business and I sold that business in 1999. It was an internet company. And the company I sold it to had offices all over the world. And they had me go fly around the world to talk to their offices about internet things. And that was the first time I had ever really left my country. Wow. So you talked about the internet business you were engaging.
00:03:03
Speaker
Apart from that, did you handle other businesses?
00:03:08
Speaker
No, I started this right out of university. And this was in the early 90s, 1994, when the internet was very new. So it wasn't, everyone was still kind of figuring out what it was about. And I started a company that connected websites to databases, which today is very simple. But back then, it was very hard. And I was just I did it by myself. And I had some companies that wanted to work with me.
00:03:36
Speaker
And then I had more business, so I hired a friend and another friend. And then
From Business to Travel Passion
00:03:39
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several years later, I'm 28 years old and I had 50 people working for me. And then I sold the business. Okay. Okay. So why did you decide to sell your house in 2007 and travel?
00:03:52
Speaker
I came up with the idea in 2005 and I didn't know what else to do. I didn't really have any business ideas. I had gone back to university to study, but that wasn't something that I wanted to do. So I came up with this idea. I didn't have a wife or children or anything. I didn't have a job. So I had the time to do it and I had some money. So I sold the house and I thought I'd be gone for a year or two, but I ended up kind of traveling for over 10 years.
00:04:22
Speaker
Now let's talk a lot more about your travels. So which country did you first visit and how was the experience like? So when I first started, I just went west. And so I went to Hawaii and then I learned how to scuba dive. And then the first foreign country I guess I went to was French Polynesia and Tahiti.
00:04:43
Speaker
And then from there, I went to Easter Island. And then I went to the Cook Islands and New Zealand. And I took about nine months to cross the Pacific Ocean. And I visited a lot of the little island countries like Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Micronesia, these places that a lot of people, they don't really ever visit. And yeah, so it took me till the end of 2007 really to just sort of cross the ocean. So, you know, which countries and continents have you visited so far?
00:05:12
Speaker
Well, I visited every continent, a couple of times actually. And I've been to 130 of the countries that are in the UN. 130? Yes.
Diverse Travel Experiences
00:05:27
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Wow. 130. Wow, wow, wow, wow. So if I should ask you to give me, let's say your top 20 countries, what would that list be?
00:05:41
Speaker
Oh, top 20. So it's always hard to save for a country because most countries, even small countries are pretty big, right? There's a lot to it.
00:05:50
Speaker
And wherever you go to a country, you're going to have an experience that's based on the weather, the time of year, the people you meet, and what you want to go see. So you could see something that's kind of interesting. And I think every country has something that's appealing about it and that makes it unique. And you just have to go to those places. And if someone doesn't go to those places, they may have a bad experience. But if you go to some of the neat places, you'll have a great experience.
00:06:18
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So what do you typically do on these trips? Share these experiences with us. Oh, it depends. It really depends on the place. I've done all sorts of different things depending on where I've been.
00:06:32
Speaker
gone dog sledding up in Northern Canada. I've been scuba diving. I've been bungee jumping in New Zealand. I've been on safaris in Africa. I've, you name it, I've done all sorts of stuff. I even got to land on a fighter on an aircraft carrier once and get launched from it, which is one of the most interesting things I've done. Whoa. I'm amazed at these experiences.
00:06:59
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So what do you typically do when you get to a country and for example you cannot speak their language? Do you have a translator or an interpreter? What do you do? How do you handle those experiences?
Overcoming Language Barriers
00:07:13
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Most countries, if you're there as a tourist, you can probably get by with English because English has become the international language of tourism.
00:07:23
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So it's not the same in every country, but then you usually, you know, uh, can learn a few words so I can, I can get by, I can order food and like French and German. Uh, if I'm going to a country that doesn't speak one of those languages, you can usually kind of figure it out smaller countries. If they're the only country, maybe that speaks that language, uh, they're almost certainly going to be speaking something else as well. So they can communicate with the rest of the world.
00:07:49
Speaker
Now I want us to have a feel of the places you've gone to, the stories you picked up, the experiences and lessons you've picked up. So if you can share some of them with us, the stories, the experiences and the lessons you picked up. Can you share some of these with us? Sure.
Changing Visa Laws in Kiribati
00:08:08
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One story that I have is I actually changed a law in a country.
00:08:14
Speaker
I was, uh, the nation of Kiribati is a very tiny collection of islands in the Pacific. And at the time Americans had to have a visa to enter Kiribati. So I got a visa because it's a, such a small country. There's only a hundred thousand people in the country. Uh, I went to the embassy in Fiji. I did everything, but on the way there, my passport got wet because I got caught in the rain in the Solomon islands and the ink bled off the page. So when I arrived at the airport, they wouldn't let me in the country.
00:08:42
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And they put me on a flight a few hours later back to Fiji. And I sent an email to the minister of tourism and he sent the email to the prime minister. And then after that, Americans didn't need a visa anymore to go to Kiribati. So I actually changed a law in a country.
00:09:01
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One of the lessons I've learned is to never have too much of a schedule. I always try to be very flexible in what I do because a lot of times you only learn about things when you get to a country. And so if you have too rigid of a schedule, then I don't think you'll have as good a time as if you just sort of go and let things unfold however they do. Are there other lessons you've picked up on your numerous travels?
00:09:30
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You like to share with my listeners?
00:09:32
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Yeah, I think most people and, you know, there are obvious differences between different countries or cultural differences and language differences, but at a certain level, I think most people are the same. They
Universal Cultural Connections
00:09:43
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want the same things in life. You know, they want what's good for their family. They go to, they work every day. And, uh, if you can connect with people at that level, then I think you can always kind of get by, uh, you can appreciate the differences, but, uh, the way you connect with people is through the commonalities in the way that we're all the same.
00:10:02
Speaker
Now let's look at Africa. Which countries have you visited in Africa? And how was the experience really like? I've visited quite a few countries in Africa. So most everything in the South. I've been to South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe. And I took a boat once.
00:10:25
Speaker
a ship. We started in Cape Town, and we went all the way up to Morocco. And along the way, we stopped in Namibia, Angola, the Republic of Congo, Benin, Togo, Ghana, South Tome, Principe, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Senegal, and the Western Sahara. And then I've also done trips to Egypt and Ethiopia separately.
00:10:49
Speaker
Oh, that's quite a good number. So since I'm based in Ghana, I certainly want to know your experience in Ghana. How long did you stay? What did you see in Ghana? How was the general experience like?
Experiencing Ghana's Development
00:11:03
Speaker
Uh, it was actually really good. So I was, it was on that trip with the ship. So we had two stops was in Accra for one. And then we were in Cape coast, uh, for the other one, uh, where we went to the historic forts and stuff in Cape coast. But I was, I was very surprised at the difference between say Ghana and Togo, because, uh, when we went to Lome, we were right on the border with Ghana, like right where the fence is. And you could see such a difference.
00:11:33
Speaker
between Ghana and Togo by just looking at each side of the fence, that Ghana is so much more developed. The standard of living is higher. You can tell just the roads are better, everything else. And Ghana has a lot of things that you won't see everywhere else in the world. One of the things I thought was very interesting was the names of a lot of the businesses. You'll have like, God loves you computer repair.
00:11:58
Speaker
or Jesus saves coffee house or something like that. Very religious names for the businesses and I've never seen that anywhere else in the world. Wow, that's interesting. Which year was this? This would have been in
00:12:15
Speaker
2014. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it'll be seven years that summer that I did it. That's longer than I thought. And I'd like to go back actually, because I did only visit that part near the coast, and I would like to go further inland, you know, to see a lot more of the country.
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot for you to see. There's Ashanti region, the northern part of Ghana. They all have rich culture and heritage. So you should visit again and see the other parts of Ghana. Yeah, but I've told a lot of people that if you're going to West Africa, I think
00:12:50
Speaker
Ghana is probably the best place to visit as a tourist because it's the most developed. Everyone speaks English. It's easy to get around and you probably have a better experience there than you might in some other countries. That's very true. That's very true. So I encourage my listeners, those who are yet to visit Ghana, take a trip to Ghana and you won't regret that visit. You are a blogger and a photographer.
00:13:20
Speaker
and my show is based on encouraging entrepreneurs and will be entrepreneurs to forge on and also overcome the challenges they are facing.
Advice for Aspiring Bloggers
00:13:35
Speaker
So having engaged in this current, having engaged in this activity for quite some time will be advice
00:13:45
Speaker
or tips for people who are desirous of building careers either in blogging or in photography? Well, photography has become very hard because most of the places that used to buy photos no longer buy photos anymore.
00:14:03
Speaker
Most people are gonna just use it to maybe grow a following on social media or they'll use it as something else, but just being a photographer has become quite hard. You know what most people pay money for for photography now is like a wedding photo or photos of children or things like that, but to be a travel photographer.
00:14:22
Speaker
That's become very hard and a lot of the people I know who've been doing it a very long time, even if they did photographs for magazines, are having a hard time finding work because all the magazines are out of business now. They're just not around. So if you want to improve as a photographer, I think there are easy ways to do it, just photographing the things around you and your community. But to make it a business has become very difficult lately because everyone has a phone now.
00:14:48
Speaker
you know they have a phone in their pocket and that's really hurt the business. As far as being a blogger, more and more it's become just having a very information rich website. So in travel what I'm seeing is it used to be you could be successful just traveling around the world and talking about your travels.
00:15:09
Speaker
Nowadays, most people are, if they're finding success with a website, it's going to be having an information resource website for people that want to visit a certain place. So if you did a website about visiting Ghana and you just had a very, you know, filled with all the different things you can do and the places you can stay and restaurants and information about how to get from here to here, the bus system, everything like that, that'd be the thing that would probably work.
00:15:39
Speaker
So how do you fund your trips? Are you sponsored for these trips? How do you fund your trips? Uh, it depends. So I would say the first five to seven years I did this, everything I just paid for myself because I love traveling. And when you're traveling full time, uh, you actually save a lot of money because you're not spending money on having a home and paying for electricity and water and you know, all the things that you would normally pay for.
00:16:07
Speaker
when you lived at home. As the site grew more popular and more people started to following me, then I started getting more trips sponsored, but that's kind of all disappeared now because of the virus and there's really no one's traveling anymore. Yes, I'll come to that shortly. So does that mean you now have a whole crew you move around
COVID-19's Impact on Travel
00:16:28
Speaker
with? Do I have a crew that I go with? Yes. No, I just always travel by myself.
00:16:36
Speaker
move to it. Alright, now let's look at the pandemic, COVID-19 and its effects on travels. I'm sure it has hindered your ability to move like you used to do. How has the experience been like? I haven't been anywhere in almost a year. I was in Portugal in February of last year and on the last day of February, I flew home and I was sick for a week. I think I actually had COVID.
00:17:04
Speaker
Uh, but it was still early on. So no one was really there. You weren't able to get testing. And by that point, it was after it had been done. It wasn't worth getting tested anymore. Uh, but that's, that's all I've done. I haven't been anywhere since, uh, February of last year. And it doesn't look like I'm going to be going anywhere anytime soon. So travel is, has pretty much stopped for me right now. I'm sure you really.
00:17:30
Speaker
feeling it because you are used to hopping on a plane and moving around to meet people and pick up experiences. So what are you doing the time being? Are you working on your blogging and photography? What have you been doing during this period?
Launch of a New Podcast
00:17:46
Speaker
I don't get to travel.
00:17:47
Speaker
Uh, I launched a new podcast and that pretty much been taking up all my time. I started it in July and I've been, it's a daily podcast. I do it every single day and I tell stories from, uh, different places around the world, uh, different people, places, and things. And every day is something completely different. So, uh, some are from history, some are about science, some are about geography. And, uh, that's where all my efforts going.
00:18:14
Speaker
So what's the name of the podcast? So my listeners can go and check it out. It's called Everything Everywhere Daily. And you can find it pretty much anywhere you get podcasts. So we are just about wrapping up. Do you have any last words or pieces of advice for my listeners?
Keys to Long-term Success
00:18:32
Speaker
You know, it's all about
00:18:34
Speaker
Uh, hustle and how hard you work. So when I started, uh, this new podcast, I was starting something brand new. I started, you know, everyone, when you start something, you have to start at zero. And when I've been, as I've been doing this, it's very tempting to look at other people and see other people who are successful. And then you feel, well, I'm not doing that well. And I try to ignore what everyone else is doing. And I just look at my own success and every day just trying to do it a little bit better. And if you do that.
00:19:04
Speaker
over one or two years, then you're going to see the success. But you basically have to constantly keep doing it, even though no one may be paying attention at first. And it's most people give up, and that's why they're not successful. And if you just don't give up, then one day after several years, you'll be an overnight success. Suddenly, everyone will think you're successful, even though it took you a long time to get there. Thank you so much, Gary, for spending time to talk to us about your experiences.
00:19:34
Speaker
We wish you the very best. And I'm hoping that when this stabilize, we can get to meet in Ghana. I would love to come back. Yeah. To see Ghana together. Where are you in Ghana? Where are you living? Yeah, no problem. Yes. So next time you visit Ghana, just let me know. Okay. I will do that. Thank you for having me on your podcast.
00:19:59
Speaker
So this has been another exciting episode of the Entrepreneur Speaks Podcast. Our guest was Gary. I'll come your way next time with another exciting episode. I remain your host, Kufi and Imaidu. Do take good care of yourself. Let's continue to keep around. Cheers.